The section of Croesbychan Road in Llwydcoed has reopened following the completion of repair works to the bridge that carries the road.
The summer scheme to future-proof the structure involved concrete repairs to the underside of the bridge deck, work to the topside of the deck, and waterproofing. Once the main works were finished, the kerb lines, footways and verges that had been removed to allow access were reinstated, and the affected section of road has now been resurfaced.
The scheme was declared complete on Thursday, August 27, with the temporary road closure lifted. The contractor’s site compound and welfare facilities remain in the nearby layby for now but are due to be cleared by the end of next week; no further traffic management will be required in the meantime.
Horan Construction Ltd carried out the work, funded through the council’s Highways and Engineering Capital Programme for 2026/27, from an allocation for highways structures worth more than £12 million.
But the goodwill generated by one finished bridge won’t paper over a much bigger, unfinished promise.
Rhondda Cynon Taf Council said it would begin work on the Aberdare bypass extension – the Cynon North Gateway scheme – at the start of this summer. Summer is now all but over, and there is still no sign of a single spade going into the ground. For residents in the upper valleys, it’s yet another deadline quietly missed, with no clear explanation offered.
And it fits a pattern. Millions of pounds keep flowing into Pontypridd, project after project, while the Cynon Valley is left waiting – again. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the council’s priorities, and its purse strings, are firmly tied to the south of the county borough, while the upper valleys are treated as an afterthought.
The frustration is sharpened by the fact that much of the groundwork for this scheme was already done. When the Welsh Government dualled the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, the infrastructure needed to connect into an Aberdare bypass extension was effectively put in place. The hard part, in other words, has already been paid for and built – by someone else. So why, years on, is the council still no closer to delivering what should be a relatively short, straightforward stretch of new road?
Instead, ratepayers have watched the council commission consultant after consultant to study, scope and re-scope the same scheme. At some point, repeated rounds of costly consultancy work for a modest stretch of road stop looking like due diligence and start looking like delay dressed up as process. If the Cynon North Gateway ends up being studied to death rather than built, residents will be entitled to call it exactly what it looks like: a white elephant in waiting.
The council was quick to thank the community for its patience over the Croesbychan Road closure. Patience, though, is wearing thin – and a reopened bridge in Llwydcoed does little to answer the question residents keep asking: when, if ever, will the Cynon North Gateway actually get under way, and how many more consultants’ fees will it take before it does?
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BIRCHWOOD, LLWYDCOED ROAD, LLWYDCOED, ABERDARE, CF44 0UL
